leadership coaching

Simple Math

February 10, 2025

Good morning! It is seven-below-zero (F) in our backyard at the moment. I happily shoveled about 8″ of fluffy snow for the better part of Saturday morning — free exercise. As I worked at moving the billions of flakes they became less fluffy and increased in depth to more than a foot!

I have one of those little relative humidity machines in my office… it is reading <30% right now.  Desert air.

Looks like we are projecting ten or more days of outdoor temperatures below zero, way below zero, and way-way below zero — as pay back, no doubt, for some of those warmer days.

  • Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (February 12, 1809) is the next big holy day — and then the Feast of Saint Valentine this Friday.
    • Which do you think will make the bigger splash?  Which should?
  • Remember that aphorism from back on the farm?
    • One bad apple spoils the whole barrel.
    • Or, as I find more often, one bad potato spoils the peck… those potatoes are the worst, the awful smell!
    • The aphorism stops short by not adding, unless you get rid of the bad apple or the bad potato… then the rest can be saved.
    • True for many fresh fruits and vegetables — and especially cheese; trim away the mold and it’s still perfectly good.
  • Sooner or later we will stop joking about the price of eggs and someone will do something, maybe.
    • But, in the meantime, Why did the chicken cross the road?
    • In this instance it was to contribute to the sustained, explosive growth, dominance, and profitability of the Atlanta-based Chick Fil-A fast food store.
    • A Chick-Fil-A store at peak performance serves a customer (or several customers if grouped together in a car, and most are!) once every 13 seconds.
    • And, it thinks it can do much better…  Chickens, attention!
    • Top leadership at Chick Fil-A study video tapes of the logistics at its stores as if they were gymnastics coaches looking for tiny flaws in technique.
      • Oh, and back to the eggs.
    • According to Genevieve Ko (NYT) you can substitute Flax Gel, Aquafaba, smashed bananas, applesauce, Tofu, smashed potatoes, and/or smashed yams for eggs.
    • Let me know how your souffle, meringue, or omelette turn out.
  • “Intensified competition.”  “Escalation.”  (DeepSeek’s response when asked, ‘What’s next for Artificial Intelligence?’)  — Cohen
  • Which automobile companies will suffer the most if/ when the Mexico/ Canada tariffs are imposed?  Volkswagen, by far.  (Bernstein)
  • Fun fact:  More than a quarter of General Motors’s cars sold in the United States come from Mexico or Canada.  (Colias)
  • Some of the better questions to ask when interviewing prospective employees for leadership positions — as informed by Bryant, MIT Sloan School:
    • Do you really want to work here?
    • What makes you tick?
    • Do you have a high level of personal accountability and determination?
    • Are you hungry to learn and to build new skills?
    • Are you a team player?
    • Are you self-aware?
    • Will you thrive in our culture?
      • (What IS our culture?) — added by YT
    • Are you an effective leader?
      • (If you steal these, be sure to give credit.)
  • Were you at DAVOS?  Aspen is next.
    • “Business leaders today see geopolitical tensions as the biggest risk to economic growth…
    • … equally, they don’t believe this period of geopolitical distaning will last forever… 
    • … ‘I am a big believer in globalization; I think it is only a matter of time before we see it swing back.’ ”  (Axel)
  • “In North America, we see women as 48% of entry-level employees, but then at that first promotion to manager, that drops down to 39%.”  (Panas, Etc., et al.)
    • Experts suggest employers could support women’s transition back to work (from childbirth, Etc.) in a few ways.
    • Keep-in-touch programs, for example, can help women maintain workplace relationships while they are on parental leave.  (Ibid.)
  • Perhaps one of those Mr. Obvious observations?
    • “Research indicates Generative Artificial Intelligence will trigger software customers to switch vendors more frequently as they race to keep up with the latest innovations.”  (Ibid.)
  • I know it’s not practical and that it’s (much) more complicated, but there must be answers somewhere in these data.
    • A downtown Minneapolis office building that sold for $200 million in 2016 just sold for $6.25 million — a 97% discount compared to just nine years ago.
    • That 960,000 GSF building is only 25 years-old.
    • By the old-fashioned math, that’s less than $7 per square foot for indoor space — out of the wind, rain, ice, snow, cold, and heat.
      • (A decent tent costs more.)
    • The housing crisis in this country will probably get much worse before it gets better, if it ever does get better, but…
    • … isn’t there a partial solution somewhere to do something — even temporarily — at <$7 per square foot?
    • And, these anecdotal data are no doubt being replicated in other urban areas across the country.

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